Bronte Sisters, Emmerdale & Last of the Summer Wine

June 2011

Location: Yorkshire

(Rachael, Deborah & Angela’s mini adventure)

It was £59 each for a two day coach trip with National Holidays, including dinner, bed and breakfast – you can’t be robbed!

Our coach was picking us up from Hartlepool at 7:40am on the Saturday morning, and I have to admit, it was a close call that we even made it there on time – I was running late for starters (faffing about with my hair), then my friend Angela was still packing her make-up bag when I called to pick her up, and lastly, my mam was messing about with her dogs when we went to collect her enroute to Hartlepool. Nevertheless, after a few panicky moments of thinking the coach might leave without us, we arrived at the bus stop and saw the coach driver standing on the kerb waiting patiently. Phew!

Skipping onboard, leaving the coach driver to handle our abundance of overnight luggage, we made ourselves comfy in our reserved seats at the front of the coach. We chatted and laughed, and Angela dished out mini Bounty bars before we’d even got ten minutes down the road.

Two days prior to our little excursion the weather had been scorching hot, so we were all decked out in flip-flops and summery clothes, expecting more or less of the same – certain that the grey clouds we’d awoken to would eventually burn off. I guess we had a good dose of British optimism going on though, because it was bloody freezing, and, in hindsight, we should have known better! The further south we headed the more promising it looked, but it still didn’t get hot - but at least the sun kept trying to poke through.

By the time we’d arrived at our first destination – Huddersfield – it was 11am, and we were happy to stretch our legs. None of us had been to Huddersfield before, and in the two hours we had to explore, we discovered there was little else to do but shop, (though, in honesty, we didn’t exactly try very hard to find anything else to do). We ended up ducking and diving into lots of different charity shops down the main road leading from the bus station – and picked up some fabulous bargains. A lot of the stuff in those places is brand new with tags still attached – and who’d have thought a charity shop would have a 50% sale! At 1pm, we shuffled back to the coach with all of our shopping bags and a Gregg’s sandwich each. My mam had opted for a plain cheese one, and announced, once Angela and I had started chomping on our own salad sandwiches, that there had been a dangerous e-coli breakout in salad vegetables, according to the news. Being far too hungry to care, we devoured the salad anyway, figuring if the worst came to the worst, the bus always had a loo we could use...and besides, we could do with losing a couple of pounds.

So, on we went to Holmfirth, the village where comedy series The Last of the Summer Wine was filmed. By this point, our Geordie coach driver had introduced himself as Dave, and we soon deduced that he must be new to the job, or at least that specific tour. We got a little bit lost once we arrived in Holmfirth, so Dave had to get out and ask a local where to go. He drove the bus through the village four times in total before finally stopping on a yellow line in the middle of the main street to let us all get out. I think the poor man was on the verge of a nervous breakdown – probably partly to do with the fact that the majority of the coach-load were a miserable lot and had started heckling him.

We ambled around a few of the shops first, and then headed to the Tourist Information Centre to find out where Sid’s Cafe was located. It was actually just a short stroll away, and we all giggled when we saw it – instantly remembering it from television. After some photographs outside we decided it would be criminal not to go in and have a cuppa, (and besides, our flip-flopped feet needed thawing). Inside the cafe a few things had changed slightly, compared to how it had been in The Last of the Summer Wine, but it was all still recognisable. Nora Batty’s slippers were even pinned to the wall, and there were lots of pictures of Compo and his chums dotted about. We ordered tea and cakes and then sat down next to a life-size cardboard cut-out of Nora Batty.

Soon Angela was presented with the most enormous cream scone that any of us had ever seen – in fact, it was so big my mam had to help her out by eating half. The things you have to do to help a friend in need!

By the time we’d indulged ourselves, time was ticking on and we only had a short while to find Nora Batty’s cottage, but first we decided to make use of the cafe’s toilet facilities before we left. Mainly, so we wouldn’t need a wee by the time we got back on the coach, and also, for no other reason than it seemed pretty cool to use the loo in Sid’s Cafe – that is, until a biker barged in and almost knocked me out with the door while I was washing my hands. My mam and Angela found this hilarious. It's such a cliche, but what a small world we live in! It turned out that one of the biker's big beardy friend lives in the same village as my mam.

After some friendly banter with the three leather clad blokes, off we headed down the road towards The Elephant & Castle pub, over a little bridge and then there we were – at the infamous steps of Nora Batty’s cottage (which is now a tearoom called The Wrinkled Stocking). Even from a distance, it was easy to imagine her standing there with a sweeping brush, getting ready to see Compo off. Our new biker friends were also there, and they very kindly offered to take some photos of us posing on the steps before slinking off, probably in case we were stalking them.

At 4pm we had boarded the coach again and were headed off to our hotel, the Ramada Jarvis in Bingley, via the streets of Bradford. We’d booked a twin room and a single room, but when we arrived at the hotel we discovered that there was a single bed and a double bed in the supposed twin room, so all three of us ended up just staying in there together.

Having freshened up, and washed my feet (by this point they looked like I’d worked a shift down the pit for some reason), we headed down for a carvery evening meal. The food was lovely, the service was good – yet unfortunately, the prices at the bar were through the roof! On the plus side, we knew we wouldn’t have a hangover in the morning. We did enjoy a couple of drinks in the bar after dinner though, it'd have been rude not to – and we did a spot of people watching. There was a wedding reception going on in the function room next door, and the wedding guests kept wandering through into the bar. Let’s just say there were some interesting outfits.

We went to bed at about 10:30pm, convinced we’d be asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows because we’d all been up since 5:30am. This wasn’t the case. We watched TV for a while and talked, and before we knew it it was 2:30am! Eventually we all nodded off, knowing we’d be wrecked the next day...

My mam was the first up. She leapt out of bed at 7am, full of the joys of spring – then Angela and I followed suit about half an hour later, less joyously. We packed our cases and headed down for breakfast, and we were back on the bus by 9:30am ready to go.

Our first stop of the day was the original Woolpack from Emmerdale. There was some slight confusion as to whether it was still the actual Woolpack or not – and it didn’t help the fact that none of us even watch the programme anyway. Dave informed us that all of the Emmerdale set had now been moved to Harewood House and that the pub was no longer used for filming. Apparently it used to be called The Commercial, and the locals of the village were petitioning to have its original name reinstated. We arrived there at 10am, posed for obligatory photos on the steps of The Woolpack and had a mosey round the tiny village.

There wasn’t much at all to do there, apart from read old gravestone inscriptions in the churchyard, and unfortunately it was too early for the pub to be open, so I felt slightly robbed that I didn’t even get to have a pint in The Woolpack. A lot of the diehard Emmerdale fans on the coach weren’t massively impressed with the experience – and with this in mind, I believe the setting itself as a tourist attraction will peter out slowly.

So, back on the coach at 11am, and off we headed to Haworth – home of the Bronte Sisters. I had absolutely no idea who they were (whether they’d written books; or whether they were fictional characters in books). But then my mam muttered something about them having written Wuthering Heights and Jane Ayre. I was vaguely aware of those two books, but to be honest, I was more familiar with the Kate Bush song. None of us were interested in period romance, so when we arrived at Haworth, we decided to do some retail therapy instead of visiting the Bronte museum. It was windy and cold, so we ended up going into almost every shop on the main stretch, seeking warmth. After a quick lunch in a cafe, and a stop off at the bakers for some cakes to eat on the way home, we headed back to the coach – beginning to feel the strains of a very late night, and if I hadn’t banged my head against the coach window whilst dozing off, I could have quite happily knocked out some z’s. We arrived back into Hartlepool at 6pm, and headed straight home for a well deserved early night.

Overall, we were all in agreement that Holmfirth was definitely the highlight of the weekend. Let’s face it – Sid’s Cafe serves the best scones in the world, and it also does a mighty fine cup of tea!